The invention pertains to laser light sources and particularly to vertical cavity surface emitting lasers. More particularly, the invention pertains to long wavelength lasers.
A vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) may include a first distributed Bragg reflector (DBR), also referred to as a mirror stack, formed on top of a substrate by semiconductor manufacturing techniques, an active region formed on top of the first mirror stack, and a second mirror stack formed on top of the active region. The VCSEL may be driven by a current forced through the active region, typically achieved by providing a first contact on the reverse side of the substrate and a second contact on top of the second mirror stack. The first contact may instead be on top of the first mirror stack in a coplanar arrangement.
VCSEL mirror stacks are generally formed of multiple pairs of layers often referred to as mirror pairs. The pairs of layers are formed of a material system generally consisting of two materials having different indices of refraction and being easily lattice matched to the other portions of the VCSEL. For example, a GaAs based VCSEL may commonly use an AlAs/GaAs or AlAs/AlGaAs material system where the refractive index of each layer of a pair may be changed by altering the aluminum content in the layers. In some devices, the number of mirror pairs per stack may range from 20 to 60 to achieve a high percentage of reflectivity, depending on the difference between the refractive indices of the layers. A larger number of pairs increases the percentage of reflected light.
In many VCSELS, conventional material systems may perform adequately. However, new products are being developed requiring VCSELs which emit light having long wavelengths. VCSELs emitting light having a long wavelength ate of great interest in the optical telecommunications industry because of a low fiber dispersion at 1310 nanometers (nm) and a low fiber loss at 1550 nm. As an example, a long wavelength VCSEL may-be obtained by using a VCSEL having an InGaAs/InGaAsP (or InAlGaAs) active region. When an InGaAs/InGaAsP active region is used, an InP/InGaAsP (or InAlGaAs/InAlAs or InAlGaAs/InP) material system should be used for the mirror stacks in order to achieve a lattice match to the InP substrate. The lattice matching between the substrate and the layers should be substantially close to ensure a true single crystal film or layer growth.
In the InP material based system, it is difficult to achieve a suitable monolithic DBR-based mirror structure having a reasonable thickness because of the insignificant difference in the refractive indices in this material system. As a result, many layers, or mirror pairs, are needed in order to achieve a useful reflectivity. Useful reflectivity may be 99.8 percent or greater. Numerous attempts have been made to address the problem of very thick mirror structures. One attempt included a wafer bonding technique in which a DBR mirror is grown on a separate substrate and bonded to the active region. This technique has had only limited success and also the interface defects density in the wafer fusion procedure may cause potential reliability problems. Other approaches to making satisfactory long wavelength VCSELs have been fraught with one problem or another. For instance, lattice matched InP based mirrors used for 1550 nm VCSELs may have a host of problems in growth, processing, and optical performance. The low index contrast of (or InAlGaAs) and InP (or InAlAs) tends to lead to a requirement of extremely thick (ten microns or thicker) DBRs of 45 or more mirror periods or layer pairs. The AlGaAsSb or AlGaPSb systems associated with an InP substrate may be difficult to grow by MOCVD; and for good contrast, may still require at least 25 mirror pairs to achieve adequate reflectivity for VCSEL operation. For some VCSEL structures, such as the long wavelength structures, current confinement is an important characteristic. Proton implantation and lateral oxidation have been developed and used for current confinement in vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) especially for GaAs-based VCSEts. For some VCSELs, however, proton implantation and lateral oxidation cannot be easily applicable due to either very thick top DBR stacks for proton implantation or lack of lattice-matched high aluminum containing material for oxidation. This appears to be the case of InP related materials for long wavelength VCSEL operation. For InP based material systems, since index contrasts are relatively small as compared to GaAs based counterparts, the DBR stacks tend to be much thicker to obtain reasonable reflectivity from the DBRs. Consequently, a huge amount of energy may be required for gain guide proton implantation of these stacks, which appears to be not practical. Such high energy may damage other parts of the VCSEL structure. Thus, lateral oxidation seems to be a necessary approach for a gain guide for current confinement and possibly optical confinement, and for device isolation. However, the aluminum content is significantly lower in materials lattice matched to InP substrates than those materials lattice matched to GaAs substrates, which makes lateral oxidation difficult. Thus, a solution to the difficulty of lateral oxidation in InP based structures is needed. The invention provides a solution.